After purchasing a pin-up calender for a nature fundraiser, Fluttershy develops a crush on one of its subjects. They're just so subdued, so elegant, and yet still so confident and charismatic... They're everything Fluttershy is and everything she is not in one beautiful package.
When Twilight "offers" to introduce the two, it seems like a dream come true. After all, this is destiny; they're a perfect match, meant to be together.
What could possibly go wrong?
Inspired by "Pictures of Lily" by The Who.
Editing and prereading by Adjudicator, MidnightRambler, Sereg, and MetaFour, all of whom are awesome.
Featured on Equestria Daily!
ObabScribbler has done a dramatic reading of this story! Find it right over here.
Chapters (2)
2468416
It's a song about about unrealistic crushes and escapism. And masturbation.
Hence the "Inspired by" instead of "Based on" label.
But then, Twilight does put that extra bit of emphasis on "interrupt."
tHIS NS God, mfafvorit.
2468874 I apologize, Barara's really drunk. I think he's praising you.
2468883 WHaf ehiasd.
2468887 Go drunk, Barata, you're home.
2468972 awhat hesadi
2469573
One-shot. The ending is intentionally left open.
Delicate flower, yeah right. More dramatic than Rarity. Oh Fluttershy, here you go again...
Oh, Fluttershy.
*Laughs* Very nice. The ending was spot on.
You magnificent bastard. This was perfect.
Pacing was perfect. Concept, perfect. The date scene? Perfect. I actually love how you played Fluttershy in this- yes, she's demure and shy and a bit of a space case, but you pull back before she comes off as completely helpless. Twilight's exchange with her at the end provides a nice little conclusion, and despite the fact that Fluttershy jumps from an obsession with Lily to another pony she's never met, there's a sense that the kid will be alright.
I really wish I had something more substantial to say about this fanfic, I make up for my own lack of writing output by trying to pack as much constructive content as I can into my commentary. Sadly, I think I'm going to have to leave this comment short and sweet. Like the story. Because the length was pretty much about as perfect as I could have asked for.
Oh, okay. And the way you characterized Lily was so amusing that it's my new headcanon personality for this character. The horror.
Very nice.
I like how you didn't go for heartbreak, which provides a more light-hearted tone.
It's just a crush, after all.
If I had written this story, I might have ended up pairing Fluttershy with Twilight, and there are definitely shades of that here, but it's probably better to leave it open like you did.
P.S.: It seems like Twilight is joining EVERY class, club and workshop in town. I mean, welding?
2476190
I tried to base Lily's characterization on the show, but I may have made her worse than I intended.
2511291
The welding helps her with her fire spells. Not sure about the journalism class and board game club, though.
And glad you both liked it
No, I'm not projecting my own romantic experiences onto Fluttershy. Don't be absurd...
Wow, those are some damn well written ponies right there Thank you thank you thank you for not just making Flutts a compete dysfunctional wilting flower. She has her assertive moments too! (and great twi.)
Onwards to chapter 2!
Yes Lily. I'm sure all precious flowers uproot themselves and complain to their gardeners if they're planted in the wrong coloured pot. Y'idiot.
A silly fic that not only plays well on Lily's "background pony" behaviour through the series, but also lets the reader walk away with a lesson in mind. Bravo!
Excellent story.
I love your characterization of Lily, and I loved the ending, too.
Pfft. Oh Fluttershy, you silly pony.
Cute and funny~ Also Fluttershy does seem like the kind of pony that would accept fliers that are shoved at her if she were walking down the street in a city.
2648067 That's a risky thing to say
Hmm... had to give some real thought to exactly what I didn't like about the prose, and I think it's that it seems like an odd use of PoV—somewhere between 3rd person limited and 3rd person omnipotent, yet a bit bland for one and too flighty for the other. Maybe the opening put me off right away (I found it extremely dry) and I was just hyper-critical for the rest, but combined with the lack of any real sense of pace it just came off feeling forumalic.
As for the comedy tag... I dunno. I'm willing to put it down to being in a rather dour mood, but it was way too forced, and too obvious, for me to find anything funny.
-Scott
2648067 2648089 2648141
Thanks
2649001
She had a flyer for a minotaur masseuse once, but Rarity made her recycle it.
That was pretty good! No outlandish characterizations, a pretty believable background pony portrayal for Lily (in all seriousness, the Ponyville population has RIDICULOUS tolerance for the shit that goes down there in part cuz of the Mane 6) and it got a giggle out of me with the added bonus of a little life lesson. I really love these kind of short, concise slice-of-life fics; feels much more like the show and actually ends eventually instead of continuing on into mediocrity like so many fics...
Great work!
2649314 Well, the second draft also elaborated upon Twilight's thoughts, and an editor correctly pointed out that it was jarring. Perhaps it's a leftover of that draft or my style, but I don't find anything too jarring about using internal monologue for more concrete thoughts and narrative monologue for less concrete emotions. Obviously I'm a bit biased in this regard, and I am trying to improve on sticking to a single type (a different editor pointed the disparity out in a different story, but it was a more explicit comedy so they didn't press the issue).
The opening was originally a full page long, and I was correctly advised to cut it down (three times, by three separate people
). It may be boring, more so if you're not in a romantic frame of mind, but I think it is important for establishing a baseline and context for Fluttershy's behavior.
I may have injected a bit too much of my personal experiences into the comedy, but I like to think that even without comedic value it still helps characterize Fluttershy.
I won't deny that there's a lot of personal experience and feelings wrapped up in this story. I don't think that's necessarily bad, however. I learned long ago that not everything can have universal appeal.
Even though you didn't enjoy it, thank you very much for taking the time to read it all, and to leave a comment explaining your thoughts.
Hopefully my explanations didn't come off as too defensive, because I really do consider all these critiques when I settle down to write new things.
2649837 Absolutely nothing wrong with falling back on personal experience—it's frequently the best way to create solid stories. And don't worry, you didn't come off any any more defensive than would be reasonable under the circumstances.
I can certainly sympathize with issues in streamlining openings; I spent a good long while trying to get my hear around it. What I eventually had beaten into me is that when using a setup of that type it needs to either be very personal (inspiring empathy), or invite the reader to do a little brain-work. I think that's where you lost me as the introduction is distinctly lacking in show, yet doesn't feel personal enough to carry as indirect monologue. It tells us what she sees, but doesn't really give us an implication of how she feels about it. That distance, I think, is why the PoV felt a bit blurred: the style of prose was more akin to a high psychic distance rather than the close one that would have been more appropriate. That's why it came off as telling to me, it didn't leave any space to figure the implications out for myself, yet didn't give me a sense of Fluttershy's experience, either.
Thus, if I had a suggestion to make it would be to try and focus a little more on how if felt to be in Fluttershy's situation, rather than the facts of that moment in time. Try to add in more sensory experience to mix up the raw telling of the circumstance that caused it. That is, if you're going to use that style of prose, at least—the other end of the scale would be to go heavy on the show and cut much of the internalizations, but that clearly wasn't what you wanted.
Not that I mean to beat you over the head with it or anything, but I thought the added detail might help, given the nature of your response.
-Scott
2649169
I think that it may only be risky in Panama.
( as here in Equestria we frequently repeat that exact sentence and I forgot what my point was. )
2656126 You have Eclipsed my joke good sir.
2656727>>2656126
These are some highly witty wordplays.
Clever puns, dare I say.
2511291 my head canon is that she develops a new crush on Twilight, and as suggested/hinted in the story Twilight already has a crush on fluttershy, Twilght works up the courage to tell her and they end up together.
the end 
That was very amusing, almost cracked up at Twilight's welding class(certainly did at Fluttershy's closet
).
Onwards to Fluttershy's love connection or fumble, eitherway it's going to be fun.
That was fun.
Fluttershy may not have hit it off but atleast she took something from the experience. Also fun to see Lily used in a story, she doesn't get alot of them.
Bravo!
2660591
Thanks
2659536
My headcanon is that Keen Eye teaches Twilight's photography class at the community college.
2660749 that makes sense!
Quite well-written so far! I look forward to seeing how this goes!
–["]I go there every Tuesday, after my book club, and before my ancient pottery class and my welding workshop.”
Wait, what? lol.
Each pony has some kind of mental problem huh?
Nice read, poor Fluttershy...
I liked this a lot! In fairness, I was desperate for a happy, trivial comedy so I could forget that I just read a story about some innocent stallion being raped to death by a changeling, so even if this was deeply flawed I might not have noticed, but all the same! Fluttershy/5 would read again if I didn't have literally 109 other stories to read first.
This story basically doesn't do anything. It setups a no-conflict and then delivers a no-resolution. The writing is serviceable, but there are no special characteristics worth attributing to it.
"People sometimes have unrealistic expectations. Also, they don't learn. The end."
2831633
I think the reason this story is so divisive is that the resolution depends on the reader; three major details about the ending are left up to the reader (Did Fluttershy learn anything? Did Twilight have a crush on her? Does either of them ever enter a healthy relationship?).
You are correct about the minimal conflict; I don't think that's unreasonable for a slice of life story. If you didn't find the comedy funny (you wouldn't be the first), then I can understand why the story might not feel interesting; it's the only thing really occupying the reader until the ending, and then said ending is heavily dependent on reader input.
Even though you didn't enjoy it, thank you very much for taking the time to read it all, and to leave a comment explaining your thoughts; it really does help me learn for the next thing I write.
(Perhaps my main mistake was not leading the reader enough? Open-ended is fine, but maybe I made it too open-ended.)
Sorry, I usually try to be more descriptive with my short story impressions, but this was one of the instances where I really didn't know what to say. For me this story just didn't go anywhere. I was aware that Twilight's dialogue could be constructed as her being like "hey, over here!", but that didn't seem to be framed as a part of the narrative, it was just there. I was left with the impression that Fluttershy didn't learn anything, because it seemed like she just replaced one fantasy with another.
The comedy seemed to center around: Fluttershy gets lost in her mind. Ponies snap her out and she is embarrassed. Also fantasy and real life != the same.
I don't think that "Slice of life" should be a synonym for "nothing happens". There wasn't a point to this story, it started with the characters in a particular state and by the end basically nothing had really changed. Of the top of my head, I can remember a story by Cold in Gardez called "The Proper Care and Feeding of Monsters". It's a slice of life story centered around Fluttershy, but it does have an emotional arc, and the character has experienced something worth telling a story about by the end.
Still, this is just me going off about my personal tastes. I just didn't want to leave an empty downvote without some comment. I feel that stories should be about something. They can be about an emotional experience, or about learning something, or about changing in some way, or a million other things. They can also be purely visceral, or wacky, but when I read a story, I'm interested in hearing what the author wants to convey. For me, this was an empty story. An open-ended finale should ideally make the reader wonder about the story and rack their brain about how the events would continue, but here there is no conflict for us to ponder about. Some things happened. Then other things happened. Then the story ended.
2834350
I wouldn't say nothing changes. At the beginning Fluttershy spends all her time in an unproductive escapist fantasy. At the end she implicitly acts on her fantasy (or plans to). A proactive response versus a passive one is character development; even if it is not that extreme, and even if she still idealizes romance, something did change. (And in the original song, the protagonist actively rejects the truth and chooses escapism. I didn't want to take that direction.)
To me that is what slice of life truly conveys; subtlety and incremental changes. Lessons build up over time. Romance is complex and slow.
As I said earlier, it doesn't surprise me that people disliked this story; addressing those ideas in a one-shot that is less than 4000 words may not have been the best idea. I didn't want to railroad the reader, but not leading them enough causes its own problems. I didn't want to do any extra scenes since it would have been repetitive (be they with Keen Eye or Twilight), but their absence means the reader can't extrapolate as much (and they don't have any of my personal experiences or story knowledge to fill in the gaps).
Hopefully these explanations don't come off as too defensive, because I really do consider all these critiques when I settle down to write new things.
Okay, I'm not going to read this (only because F/F shipping just isn't my thing), but I'm going to like it on the fact that its based off a song by one of my favorite bands, The Who
We don't get enough fics based off their music, or classic rock in general, so I'm happy to see one out there, even if its not my preferred shipping.
2892873
Another of my stories, I Am Not the Actor, is inspired by Quadrophenia.
I regret nothing, because The Who is one of the best bands ever.
2893218 EPIC.
I still await a fic inspired by Behind Blue Eyes
2893235
Please tell me you're talking about the song by Limp Bizkit.
2893790 NO.
The REAL song was recorded in 1971 by British rock band The Who, for their album Who's Next.
Limp Bizkt did a crappy cover version in 2004 or something and totally ruined it by have a freakin' Speak-and-Spell chant the bands name during the Middle 8.
2894043
Listen I knew it was made by The Who (Thanks dad!) but I just liked the Limp Bizkit one better, and that's why I said but I just talking about the song in general, cover or not.
2894163 Then yes that is the song.
I apologize, I just really get peeved when people think a modern band covered a classic rock song. Not because I hate modern music (love me Adele, Owl City, Muse, etc), but more because all somebody has to do is Google the freaking song and at least have the courtisty to give credit to the guys who wrote the original.
Also, and this is just my opinion, Limp Bizkit SUCKS. And really the thing that pissed me off about their cover version is because they had the aforementioned Speak-and-Spell interlude chanting the band's name like a bunch of self-righteous jerks. At least The Who, Beatles and such didn't go screaming their name in their own songs...especally with a toy meant for TODDLERS.
2894332
Trust me I understand where you're coming from! And I feel stupid for not mentioning them, i hate it when I to do that! And I'll be honest I kinda hate Limp Bizkit too. I mostly listen to stuff like Lynyrd Skynyrd, Dio, Metallica, Pink Floyd, Ect. So when heard Limp Bizkit I was like i.imgur.com/fZKGA5n.gif